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Science should actually do something useful for the player. Atmospheric analysis can allow you to predict flight paths through atmospheres, for example. Map zoom view tied to how you've imaged the planet. Then add the details to the worlds so that this information is useful.

Mars has been "around the corner" since I was born. Forgive me if I think that current claims are no more likely than all the other efforts (and the vast quantities of money sunk into them).

I've managed a few MM patches myself, so that's not a problem I used to have @Nertea's stuff in my install, and with 64 bit I guess I can put it back (woot!).

I'm not sanguine about humans going to Mars in the next 30 years anyway . It is my understanding that current bone loss mitigation efforts are just that, they mitigate bone loss, but do not prevent it. Note that the losses experienced on long ISS missions to this point are in spite of their exercise regimes.

Regarding docking, particularly welded docking: can those ports "snap to alignment?" It's really hard to build something where all the parts stay in alignment on orbit. I get usually get pretty close eyeballing it, but it can be a few degrees off, and once I notice I cannot unseen it. Ideally this would be a function you could set in the right click, because it would be useful for any new docking port part. Perhaps the part needs to be rotated within 5° or something, and then rotates to alignment. This idea sort of goes hand in hand with my asking for a sort of linear docking truss part, as that would have to snap to alignment to be useful.

I'd be most worried about acute issues, like bone loss. Presumably 0.38g helps, but I think a precursor study would be to have a spun hab in Earth orbit at martian gravity to see. If that eliminates the bone loss problem, it would be a big deal, because then the transit times would have an intervening reset---that might be another study, send people to ISS, measure bone loss, then send them to the 0.38g station and see if it results in regeneration.

#2 sounds better, frankly.

Seems silly to land someplace you could literally jump off of using a capsule designed for a powered, atmospheric landing on Earth. There is a reason vehicles are designed to be specialists. You are suggesting spending a long time in a spacecraft, then landing in a capsule that you would presumably also be using for Earth return after landing on a couple dusty moons.

Here's a hub with 3 crossed SSTU tanks. Obviously the docking ports could be welded types or standard size in any of the 6 directions. I don't know if they could be switchable, i.e.: 2 x welded, plus 2x standard, plus 2 x 2.5m, or something. Perhaps they could be slightly longer so that the hub is less tight, with room for some RCS (more of an obvious + shape). Docking lights are in SSTU, I wonder if on a hub such lights might be off the ports slightly, and not quite on-axis so that once docked they illuminate the docked segments.

Yeah, it's not really a KSP thing since we cannot interact with the terrain in the ways needed.

Venus and Mars have no appreciable magnetosphere, so their radiation environment on the surface is actually pretty bad. Mars is 0.67 miliSieverts per day, so they get a year of Earth background every 5.2 days. Deep space is a several hundred mSv per year. Venus is bad, too (no magnetosphere). Eve rotates sort of normally though.

^^^then they need to be buried in a few meters of soil .

Yeah, I'm sure it was. Like I said, on the recent landings, I don't remember seeing the top of the stage, so I guess I just missed it.

What is the purpose of the highly tapered parts on TKS-VA? Honestly, I google the Almaz stuff, and the tapered bits look like a launch escape tower. Ah, the tapered bits on the ends are the return vehicles. So on your TKS, that would be an entirely different part as a reentry vehicle, leaving it really just a cylinder.

We'd all like "wow" factor visual improvements, that goes without saying. As for gameplay, it's way more complicated. I'm with @Veeltch on "biomes" (that name needs to go, it only applies to places with biology, it'd be like calling the munar surface an ocean). It just slightly changes the grind structure. I suppose it depends on the vision of the "end game." Say for argument that the end game became long-term habitation/outposts. Depending upon the way the Joolian magnetosphere works, certainly only Kerbin and possibly Laythe are places not awash in deadly radiation. Every other body would require habitats to be buried in regolith. The RL analogs are about 5m for the Moon, and about 3m for Mars (that's how deep they need to be covered in their local soils). If building outposts using local shielding were a thing... 1. It gives kerbals something to do on a planet. 2. It makes some sites potentially better than others (add lava tubes?), and perhaps requires more science (this area is better suited to tunneling, etc). 3. Maybe some new construction parts, like a nuclear powered drill (fuses regolith into a glass tube as it penetrates), a front loader, etc. 4. It provides an incentive to come up with 'AI" kerbals that can do certain construction work on their own (really just a cool visual effect, so that when you bring resupplies, the kerbals at the outpost "look busy"). 5. Perhaps such interesting features could somehow be randomized. Certain terrain types (a combination of the current biome data, plus local terrain shape) might be where rilles form. Perhaps they are not always breaking the surface in the same place (forcing some exploration).

LOL, I think it's that the only time I remember the RCS firing a lot post landing was the ASDS landing where it tipped over. The RTLS modality meant that we had a nice, steady cam view where the entire booster was clearly visible. I can only assume this happened in the other landings but I missed it.

Maybe it's because the video usually cuts out on the ASDS footage, but I was kinda worried with the RCS going strong immediately post landing thinking there was a gear failure.

You can see the lateral Trans Mars Injection stage modules in the crew vehicle. BTW, I think a non-spinning transit habitat is a showstopper for a Mars mission. The current known issues regarding visual problems, and the well-established bone loss problems are crippling for typical Mars mission durations, IMO, and we have no idea if the sojourn on Mars itself even helps all that much (we have no 1/3 g data at all). All that is aside from the fact that a Mars Hab really needs about 3m of soil covering it (I'm thinking ahead to building cool, realistic crafts with these parts )

Yes, basically everything that Congress does is pork for the districts involved. NASA has always been, and will always be a pork program as the primary goal as far as the people who make funding decisions it are concerned. That it does anything else is secondary, even if that secondary goal is all that matters for those of us not on the payroll. STS (the full-Monty, not what we got) was of course a real glint in the eye idea from NASA, but what was passed/built was nothing at all like the initial design goal. Subsequent jobs and accomplishments attributed to Shuttle could have been done cheaper/better with expendable LVs. ISS, etc, were built to fit into Shuttle. HST repair is usually touted, but minus the massive costs of Shuttle, it would have been cheaper to just build and launch a new HST, frankly (in a fantasy world where NASA gets the same budget, and is only concerned with doing what they want to do spending money however they like). That's the problem with threads like these and the "no politics" aspect. All public spending is by definition political, and the "goals" of government programs are also always political.

Mars itself seems like a non-starter to me in the foreseeable future past a short visit, and even that is pretty non-trivial. The radiation environment in transit, and on Mars is a real problem. They better spin the transit vehicle, or substantial, permanent health issues will result (ISS style exercise regimes only slow the deterioration, they don't stop it). With all that, we don't even know if 1/3 g is enough. On top of that, any hab on Mars needs to be under 3m of soil.

Up the thread I mentioned a part idea---a full diameter hub part that includes a crew common area (since full diameter means 2.5m). Basically like 3 crossed hitchhikers with 2.5m docking ports (or welding docking ports). That's assuming that you think 2.5m docking ports should be a thing, else 2.5m welded, and standard size regular ports as an option, perhaps you could pick which are which via right-click. For interplanetary ships, I wonder if there could be a novel sort of docking port... Some of the Mars DRA stuff shows laterally mounted stages (like a Delta IV Heavy, but in space). You can build those in KSP, but trying to assemble such a thing in orbit is pretty non-trivial, you usually want 2 docking ports per tank, and then dock both at once to keep it lined up. Would a linear "mating" segment be possible, perhaps it's gendered, and the "female" side is a truss part of some sort, and the tank gets the male side. They'd snap together linearly in only one way, making assembly on orbit possible.

We honestly don't know if SpaceX has the right way of doing it. They have yet to reuse one, and unless we have a reason to use a booster many times, I'm not sure where savings really matters (that idea is predicated on a much higher launch cadence than we actually need right now).

My great, great grandfather was in fact from Germany, he arrived in NY in 1848 aboard a sailing ship. He started a farm in Wisconsin, and within a couple years of arrival was using "John" instead of "Johann" (his own choice). Everyone since in that branch of the family is "American" (who happened to have German surnames) except my grandmother who was born in Sweden). Regardless, Kraft in the drama was referring to, you know, actual Germans (naturalized citizens of the US whose nativity was German) who we scooped up after the war (the story of the US grabbing up German scientists is actually pretty interesting, and I don't think at all "political" from the standpoint of the forum, it's just a cool story). I'll agree with pb666 here and say that unless they have a transcript that actually shows Kraft saying it, it's likely nonsense.

Any sort of realistic bases pretty much requires bring them. Maybe "earth moving" would be a cool thing to add.

I doubt there is room in any kerbal craft for a second set of helmets, or room to change at all .